TOSH McKINLAY knew football management was a brutal battleground with no place for sentimentality when he saw Celtic sack Tommy Burns.

Now the former Celtic and Scotland full-back hopes Rangers will at least show a suitable level of tolerance and understanding to his close friend Ally McCoist in his hour of need at Ibrox.

They might have played on opposite sides of the Old Firm divide but McKinlay and McCoist have a friendship that goes back to their teenage years.

Tosh felt for his mate on Wednesday when Rangers crashed out of the League Cup with a 3-0 home defeat to Inverness.

Despite gaining redemption in a 7-0 thrashing of Alloa in the Scottish Cup on Saturday, McCoist admitted afterwards he will be a failure if he doesn’t deliver the Division Three title.

McKinlay firmly believes the gut-wrenching experiences McCoist has gone through since replacing Walter Smith, encompassing everything from embarrassment on the field to liquidation off it, will ultimately make him a better manager.

But McKinley was shown that the size of a man’s reputation, goals scored or caps won counted for nothing when he watched Celtic remove a club great from the manager’s office in 1997.

He said: “There was no truer Celtic man than Tommy. The foreigners come and go at Celtic and Rangers but it was the west of Scotland boys like Tommy, Ally and myself who really understood what our clubs were all about.

“We wore the jersey and understood the emotions.

“My biggest regret in football was that I let Tommy down when Celtic could have won a title in the 1995-96 season.

“I know how much that would have meant to him and I used to tell Tommy before his tragic death that I felt I’d failed him.”

The Celtic fans idolised Burns and appreciated the style of football he tried to play. But the fact he won just one trophy – the Scottish Cup in 1995 – during his three seasons in charge resulted in him being sacked.

Burns insisted on leaving Celtic Park by the front door to be greeted by a disbelieving band of distraught supporters rather than sneak out a back exit.

And McKinlay understood why his pal left with head held high.

He said: “There’s nothing a manager can do when his fate is ultimately in the hands of the players. The game is about results and when you’re at Celtic or Rangers the minimum effort is 100 per cent.

“The punters demand success and the board have no room for sentimentality.

“Tommy knew all that and used to say to me and the other players, ‘Fear is a useless emotion. You’ve got to show your ability.’

“He knew, and Ally will also, there are two types of bravery.

“One is the graft you put in during a game but the other is possessing the character to bring the ball down in front of a baying crowd of 50,000 and use it instead of looking for a place to hide on the pitch.

“I know the fight Ally has in him when it comes to Rangers.

“I played for Dundee when we beat them 1-0 at Ibrox in the 80s and big Jock Wallace blamed Coisty for missing chances.

“Ally told me the manager was so incensed he called him into his office on the Monday morning and told Coisty he was going out on loan to Cardiff City.

“But Ally refused to leave because he wanted to stand up for himself and prove he could make it at Rangers.

“That’s the kind of man they have as manager today.”

McKinlay can draw comparisons between the position Burns was in when he lost his job and the situation where McCoist finds himself backed into a corner by poor results.

He said: “When Tommy became Celtic manager there was little or no money at the club and Rangers were the dominant force. Now Celtic are in the Champions League and Rangers are in the Third Division.

“The turmoil at Ibrox has made life even tougher for Ally but the club have to give him the time to find his feet in management.

“I’ve said to him that when we were playing second fiddle to Rangers in the 90s they showed a ruthless disregard for our problems and got on with their own business.

“Now Ally needs time to put the fire he had in his belly as a player into the bellies of those he now manages.” But icons are as much of an endangered species as mere mortals when pressure mounts and chairman or owners become trigger happy.

The Old Firm’s history is littered with the P45s given to legends such as Billy McNeill, John Greig, Davie Hay and Kenny Dalglish.

McKinlay added: “Maybe Greigy was still too close to some of his pals when he came out of the dressing room and went straight into the manager’s office at Ibrox.

“Would Kenny, with the benefit of hindsight, have considered one League Cup Final win good enough for a Celtic manager? These men were icons as players but only big Billy won enough to be considered an outright success as a manger.

“I don’t want Ally to fail because I think he can come through this and be a cracking boss.”

Some misguided people might fail to understand why McKinlay and McCoist could be such good friends but both have always understood there’s more to life than football.

Tosh said: “I cherish Ally’s friendship because he is such a good man.

“We used to go to a Glasgow club called Panama Jax when we were teenagers making our way in the game and I loved his company. He’s always been there for me at the difficult moments in my private life and I would gladly offer him moral support at a time like this in his managerial career.

“Ally goes out of his way to help people and I’ve got so much time for him, Kenny McDowall and Ian Durrant.

“Rangers being in the Third Division is to the detriment of Scottish football and I feel for them and what they’re going through.

“But if Tommy got the push from Celtic then nobody’s safe. I also know Ally can put Rangers into the hearts and minds of his players if he gets the time to do so.”